The Lost Article
by SweetSinger2010
Summary: Alexsandr Kallus enjoyed having the small child perched on his shoulders, even if she did insist on combing and knotting her fingers through his neatly-arranged hair. His former self would have scoffed in derision at such a display, but his former self had never met little Depa Billaba Jarrus.


A/N: This is just some pure, probably-AU fluff to fight the Sunday blues for those of us headed off to work or school tomorrow! It's my first time writing Kallus, which was much more difficult than I thought it would be, so I'm very open to constructive criticism so I can improve that characterization.

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The Lost Article

 _7 ABY_

Alexsandr Kallus enjoyed having the small child perched on his shoulders as they walked through the New Republic operations center on Hosnian Prime, even if she did insist on combing and knotting her little fingers through his neatly-arranged hair.

"Xaaaanderr," she said, using the nickname no other person in the galaxy dared to. "I gotta question."

"You always have a question. What is it this time?"

"Is my mama the boss of everybody?"

"Yes, basically," he answered after a brief moment of consideration.

"Wow." There was a pause after the awestruck whisper. "Even you?"

"Yes, even me."

"Even daddy?"

Knowing she couldn't see his face, Kallus smirked. "I suppose you'd have to ask him."

Her body bobbed as she nodded. "I will. What about Chopper and Ezra? Is she even the boss of them?"

"Your mother is _especially_ the boss of them."

"That's good, probly," she said seriously. "Chopper gets in trouble a lot."

"Big talk from someone who just took herself an accidental trip into orbit!" He stopped walking and tilted his head back to peer into her face. They were looking at each other upside down and she giggled, patting his cheeks.

"You're silly," she lisped.

"And you're naughty." He tried to fix her with a reproving look, but couldn't quite manage it. "What _were_ you thinking, climbing into that X-Wing? You scared that poor pilot to death popping out from under the console."

"I was _thinking_ ," she started, mimicking his tone, "I heard Bean talkin' 'bout they modified the thrusters in the X-Wings and upgraded the auto-nav, and I just wanted to _know_."

Kallus felt his lips twitch in the beginnings of a smile. "Well, what did you think?"

She sniffed. "It was hard to tell in _that_ ship 'cause the engines on the left wing were _obviously_ not drawing power prop'ly. It sounded like—" She stopped and made a low gurgling sound to show him exactly what it sounded like. "Someone needs to fix it 'fore there's a accident."

"Hmm." Kallus made a mental note to speak with the flight mechanics on duty. He didn't doubt her assessment; she'd showed a prodigious interest and intuition for spacecraft and piloting from the time she could walk. He was astonished by the brilliance of her tiny mind, but he knew better than to encourage her mischievous streak. Pretending to scold, he shook his head and kept walking. "Why didn't you just _ask_ Sabine to show you the ships? Or your mother?"

She scoffed. "'Cause there was a halfway chance they'd say no," she said. Her tone held the annoyance of someone saddled with the burden of speaking to an idiot. "And it's better to ask 'giveness than permission 'cause if you ask _permission_ , someone might say no and then you can't do what you wanted to do, but if you ask for _'giveness_ , then that means no one can tell you no 'cause you've already done it."

Kallus laughed loudly, swinging her down and crouching in front of her. "You're an appallingly cheeky girl, Depa Jarrus," he said with a fake frown. "Where did you hear that?"

"Commander Antilles," she whispered conspiratorially. "I was hanging out in the pilots' lounge yesterday, an' he told it to me then."

"Now _why_ would he do that?"

"'Cause. The Rogues were all drinkin' juice, only I don't know what kind, 'cause Commander Antilles said I couldn't have any on account of I'm not twenty-one yet, so he made me a cocoa instead, and I said I'd have to ask daddy 'cause it was before supper, an' that's when he told me."

"Aha." Kallus fought the urge to roll his eyes at the image of Rogue Squadron drinking "jet juice"—their crudely-distilled hooch—in the presence of a small child. Yet he knew she was completely safe in their company; she was their unofficial mascot and they adored her fiercely. "Well," he said, standing and taking her by the hand, "if I were you, I wouldn't tell that story for a while. It might make your mother cross."

"Xander, what's 'cross?'"

"'Cross' is what mothers are when their children misbehave, or wander off, or get into X-Wings." He wagged his eyebrows at her.

"Worth it," Depa said frankly. "Was your mother ever cross?"

"All the time," he answered ruefully. "Mostly at my brothers."

Depa sighed dramatically, trailing her fingers on the wall. " _I_ want a brother, but mama says that's not very likely. It makes her sad whenever she says it." She looked up at Kallus, brows furrowed. "Why?"

He exhaled in a sigh as he carefully considered how to answer. "Well," he said at last, "your mother was very, very ill right before you were born. The doctor told her it would probably be a good idea to not have any more children, in case she should get sick again."

"Oh." Depa nodded. "That makes sense." She fell silent, humming as they ambled together down corridors.

Kallus was grateful she'd accepted his simplistic explanation. In truth, Hera Syndulla's entire pregnancy had been a harrowing and life-threatening ordeal culminating with Depa's premature birth just hours after the evacuation of Hoth. Mother and baby narrowly survived, requiring intensive care for the seventy-two worst hours of Kanan Jarrus's life; the man still couldn't talk about it without turning gray.

It was impossible to tell by looking at Depa now that anything had ever been wrong. She was a beautiful, thriving child. She had the perfect blend of her parents' features; the shape of Hera's face and nose with Kanan's brilliant teal eyes and the quirk of his brows. Her mouth, though, full-lipped and always about to smile, was entirely her own. Her skin matched her mother's, which was her only immediately evident Twi'lek trait; she had the cone-shaped hearing organs inherent to all Twi'lek women, but they were usually covered by a head-wrap, or by the curly masses of her own dark hair. She was sporting a black head-wrap today, hair pulled back in two pigtails high on the back of her head. Dressed in orange coveralls and a white blouse, a small, empty, child-sized holster strapped to her little thigh, and black leather boots, she was devastatingly cute.

Kallus reached for one of her pigtails and tugged it gently. "You've got your hair like this a lot," he said after a long, companionable silence. "Is it your favorite?"

She shrugged, swiping at the frizz of ringlets framing her face. "Yeah, kinda. Keeps it out of my way. Mostly I like it 'cause I can pretend I have lekku like mommy. See?" She tossed her head, flipping one pigtail over each shoulder.

"Clever girl," Kallus said with a chuckle.

Their long walk from the hangar bay was coming to an end. He ushered her through a door and they stepped inside a room containing a long table with chairs set around it. There was a com console at the back of the room, which was what he'd been looking for. The labyrinthine path to finding it reminded him of Yavin, and he felt grateful that Depa, growing up under the fledging New Republic, would never know the fear or desperation of those early days in the Rebellion.

"Only, I wish I _did_ have lekku," she chattered, oblivious to his musings, "because mama can just get up and _go_. We have to fuss my hair _so much_ to get it to do _anything_."

"You could cut it short like Sabine's," he suggested.

She rolled her eyes. "That's crazy talk."

"My mistake." He picked Depa up and settled her on his left hip. Her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his neck, bringing the two of them cheek to cheek. She reminded him of his nieces, and after years of being attached so closely to the _Ghost_ crew, he loved her like one. He'd been many things in his life, but "Xander" was by far his favorite. "Let's tell your mother where you are, shall we? She's likely sick with worry by now."

"Yeah." She was starting to slacken in his arms, drowsiness washing over her.

Kallus walked them over to the com panel on the wall. "See that big button there?" He asked, pointing.

"Mmm."

"That's the all-call button. It sends a message over every com on base. Want to push it?"

Depa gasped softly. "I can't do that," she said, horrified, "I'd be in big trouble. I'm only supposed to talk on the com to people I _know_."

"You stowed away on an outbound ship this morning, and you're worried getting trouble because of the com?" He laughed. "Tell you what. You push the button, and I'll talk. No one will know."

She smacked her lips together, thinking. "Okay," she said after a moment. He leaned over and she mashed the button, holding it down.

"Paging General Syndulla," Kallus said in a crisp, business-like voice. He winked at Depa. "Please report to the west conference room to retrieve your lost article. General Syndulla to the west conference room."

Depa pulled her hand off the button and giggled. "I'm not a 'article,'" she said matter-of-factly, laying her head on his shoulder. "I'm a little girl."

"No, you're not. You're trouble masquerading as a little girl."

"Huh-uh."

Kallus sat in one of the chairs in the room, Depa nestled comfortably in his lap. "You know," he said, teasing "for someone whose parents are as tall as yours are, you're quite small. Aren't you eating your vegetables?"

"I'm only _four and a half_ ," she answered around a yawn. "There's still time."

His eyebrows rose; her verbal skills and vivacious personality often tricked people into forgetting how young she really was. If she was like this at four, what would she be at fourteen? "I suppose you're right."

Depa didn't say anything more, and after a few moments, Kallus glanced down to find her asleep. Her breathing was slow and steady. She didn't stir when the conference room door whooshed open ten minutes later, her parents coming inside.

"Thank the Force," Hera whispered shakily when she saw Depa. Kanan laid a steadying hand on her shoulder, his own relief evident as the tautness around his mouth relaxed.

"Easy, mum and dad. She's perfectly alright." Kallus had to work to keep his tone soothing; it was tempting to laugh at the overwrought parents, clearly outmatched by their crafty child. "Just had a bit of a busy morning." He stood carefully, passing her to her father. In his arms, she looked even tinier than before.

"She was in my office," Hera said, anxiously sweeping the hair out of Depa's face, "and then she was just _gone_."

"Quite by design, too," Kallus said wryly.

"We heard." Kanan sighed, aggrieved. "Every pilot in this place is going to nervous for weeks, checking jumpseats and under consoles."

Hera shuddered. "If that ship had gone into hyperspace, or crashed—"

"It may well crash anyway," Kallus interrupted. "Depa thinks there's a problem with the engines."

Kanan's eyebrows rose above his mask. "Then there probably is."

"I'll check it myself," Hera murmured, watching her daughter in awe. Then she reached out and took Kallus's hand. "Thank you, Kallus."

He nodded, smiling. "Not at all. We had a lovely chat. I'm sure she'll tell you all about it later."

"No doubt."

Kanan and Hera turned to leave, and as they passed through the door, Kallus swore he saw Depa's drowsy eyes open long enough for her to throw him a wink.

"What a little bantha," he muttered to himself. He left the conference room and headed back to the hangar bay, hoping to find Commander Antilles and give him a hard time about the Rogues' "juice." If he was feeling generous, he'd also let him know that General Syndulla was likely to hear about the whole episode from Depa.

Kallus laughed out loud suddenly, thinking about Hera. The first time he'd ever seen Hera Syndulla was on a Star Destroyer aboard which she'd illegally landed the _Ghost_ in an attempt to rescue Ezra Bridger. He remembered seeing her stand on the _Ghost's_ ramp, eyes blazing, blaster drawn, mouth set in determination, looking calm and deadly and formidable. That had been what, twelve years ago? The image juxtaposed sharply with the Hera Syndulla he'd seen just now, a shaken woman whose eyes were watery and hands trembling as she, once again, was retrieving a child from his custody.

It was an ironic turn of events, Kallus thought, one his former self would have scoffed at with derision. But he wouldn't trade his time with Depa Jarrus today for a single moment back in the Imperial Navy.

His personal com started to beep and he grinned as he fished it out of his pocket. He'd had it with him all morning, and could have contacted Kanan and Hera as soon as he'd taken charge of Depa in the hangar bay. It would have been the kindest thing to do, but not as fun for him.

Serving with the Alliance and now the New Republic had changed and softened him, but not _that_ much.


End file.
